About Outpost

Outpost is a
Windows-based packet message client that lets you send
and receive packet messages with almost any Amateur
Radio Bulletin Board System (BBS) or TNC Personal Mail
Box.

Outpost was designed
for the ARES/RACES packet user
community. The thinking behind it was to create
an intuitive, easy-to-use program that lets ARES/RACES
organizations focus on the "message," not
the "medium," as they pass digital message traffic to
and from an Operational Area BBS. So, what are
the overall design goals?

Hide the complexity of
the native packet environment and shorten the
learning curve

Provide an MS
Windows-based packet messaging client

Automate the packet
message handling environment

Create a program that
behaves like your email client that you have at work or home…
…create, send, receive, read, delete, reply to, or
forward messages

Support the response
efforts and requirements of our local
municipalities and served agencies

Outpost has a similar look and feel
to other contemporary mail clients. It features
Windows-driven forms and screens that handle creating,
sending, receiving, storing, and printing packet
messages from your PC. It also can run
automatically where it periodically checks for
out-going and in-coming messages.

Outpost does not yet
support any packet message forwarding protocol or
SMTP. Instead, it interprets the
information sent from the TNC and BBS, then
generates the TNC and BBS commands needed to send,
list, and retrieve messages from the BBS. It
essentially automates the keyboard entry and
interpretation performed by the user.

Outpost uses BBSs and PBBSs
as mail drops where a user can leave a packet message
for someone without the other person needing to be on
line at that point in time. Support for many BBS and PBBSshas been built into Outpost with new ones
being added as they are identified.

Outpost has undergone
several releases of functionality identified by the
Outpost user community. Find information on the
last few Outpost releases here...

See the Readme280.txt file for NEW
USER and EXISTING USER Installation
instructions.

To download the latest
installation program, double-click on the link below to
run it from the website, or right mouse-click on the
file, select "Save Target As...", and choose or
create your download directory.

Outpost v2.8 for Windows 98, NT,
2000, Me, XP, Vista, W7, W8
5.4 Mb, with Keyspan USB-Serial Adaptor Problem fix. This program installs all programs,
documents, sample, and setup files needed to get
Outpost up and running on the latest
release. See the Readme280.txt file
for other information. See the Release Info for
changes in this version. This is a
single distribution for all supported windows
operating systems that you use.

Ics213mm for Windows
98, NT, 2000, Me, XP, Vista, W7, W8
2.3 Mb, This install program delivers the Ics213mm
program into its own directory. Use this
installer when setting up a remote PC that does
not need the entire Outpost application suite
installed.

Documentation, App Notes,
Training, Presentations

Current
Documentation

The
Outpost v2.8, Outpost Scripting, and ICS 213 Messaging
User Guides are all available. Check out the 13
tutorials for a hands-on introduction to
Scripting. To directly download a specific
user guide, right mouse-click on the link below, select
"Save Target As...", and choose or create your
download directory.

500Kb, this paper describes how to set up
Outpost TNCs to reduce packet channel
traffic. Through these settings, County
reduced their packet traffic by 80% (the series of
sends and Acks between 2 stations).

318Kb. Revision 2. Describes how to configure a BBS to be
accessible using KA-Nodes and Netrom nodes.
Update includes access to BPW MailChat through the BPQ32 switch. Four examples are discussed with descriptions on
how to identify, define, and configure your own
nodes.

496Kb, This describes how a KPC-3P could
be used as a standard alone PBBS. This is
possible by using the latest KPC firmware (with
concurrent access capability) and a 512Kb memory
upgrade. Firmware and memory upgrades are
also described.

158Kb. This is a packet
implementation recommendation that describes not
only the policies that Santa Clara County RACES
will adopt, but also the steps needed to set up
Outpost to implement the policies.

52Kb. A summary of the work
performed by Bruce KC6VHR on getting Outpost to
run on Windows 95. This Windows Version has
been problematic for many users since W'95 is out
of support and update files are no longer
available from Microsoft for download.

A version of the formal
(PDF'ed) slides is also available in Microsoft
PowerPoint for localization. The screen shots are a
lot cleaner in this file, and may make a good starting
point for customizing any local training. Note
that the slide's "Speaker Notes" are INCOMPLETE, and are
just my initial thoughts on some key points. Also,
if there are other ideas for presentations (different
audiences, materials, etc), please send me your
suggestions.

1.6Mb, This is a PowerPoint
version of the training that can be further
customized or integrated into your local
training. It includes screen shots of the
different forms, and a reasonable explanation of
what is going on.

1.0Mb, This is customized training
material developed by Jim N6JRC used in several
classes put on by Los Altos ARC for its members
and members of Santa Clara County RACES. See
the slide+notes
version for the narrative for each slide.

Presentations

Here
are .pdf versions of several presentations. If you
would like the original PowerPoint slide set, please
contact KN6PE.

747Kb, 1 Mb, EMCOMM
University, Two presentations were delivered
to this event; The first presentation (748Kb)
introduces Outpost and shows how Outpost aligns
with packet policy. The second (1Mb) is a
discussion on how Outpost could further enable EOC
operations.

766Kb,
EmCommWest06. The approach for this
presentation was less on Outpost training and
more on introducing the notion of Outpost as a
tool to enable emergency packet communications
policies. See the follow-on Santa
Clara County RACES App Note on this
topic.

Application Update,
478Kb. This is an executable-only update to
the main installation package listed above for
Outpost.exe, all Interactive
Packet Programs, and Opdirect.exe.
Several user-requested enhancements and bug fixes
are included. See the README222 file
for installation information and the Release Information
section for a list of changes included in this and
past releases.

Upgrade files to bring Outpost up to
release 2.0.4. This was not a full release,
and relied on Outpost 2.0 to be previously
installed. This zip file contained only
program and configuration files; the setup process
required manual movement of files into the Outpost
program directory.